RealID to come to the Official Blizzard Forums

[Aenar]

I understand that statement "Opt-In", but there is no clarity to what access players have if they don't Opt-In. Are we restricted from posting on the forums, or even reading them? If this becomes mandatory and spills over into my identity being released against my wishes in any form (in game, armory, etc), I will resign Warcraft. No game is worth the hassle of potential stalkers, hackers (more than just robbing gold), and future first impressions that then get googled. It wouldn't surprise me if some people who start dating secretly google their date for background information.

This isn't a threat toward blizzard that "omgz, five accounts canceled, suck on it"... I understand they couldn't care less in that regard. As long as I'm not publicy identified, I'll keep playing. F*#% the idea of social networking while gaming. I never used my full name when networking "Doom", "Quake", & "Unreal". I don't PVP in WoW, but god damn someone who's epeen gets stepped on might well find out who did it and take it too far.

[Fat Tire]

Its kinda Orwellian really and has a huge chance of unintended consequences.

[cmeche]

Screw seeing real names....seems like it would be easier and a little more acceptable to just have all your toon's names show up under your "profile"....for that account.

[Souca]

I'd be interested to know the "opt-in" as well. It could be something as simple as making a post.

After RealID came out, I felt a little foolish for being so upset about it. Like I had made a big deal out of something that had just been intended to be useful. However, I'm now beginning to wonder if some of that concern wasn't well founded. It just seems like Blizzard is hellbent on making their systems a pay to play version of facebook.

I really hope I'm wrong, but at this point I'm afraid to trust Blizzard any more than I have to.

As for search engines and data mining... there are companies that already do statistical analysis to blogs to try and match them to real people they have in their databases. When I spoke with them they were using sites like LiveJournal, so I'm sure they would be very keen on doing the same sort of thing with any forum that lists a full name. In fact, it's a lot less work for them.

- Souca -

P.S. Wonder if Salman Rushdie plays wow...

[daviddoran]

works for me..... not like i could even come up with a creative username anyway......

But I can see blizzard's side. It probably costs them a lot of money in manpower to moderate all the spam QQ, flame wars etc. I'm sure the trolling wont go away, but it will drop dramatically, and IMO that is their primary goal.

I guess they could somewhat increase security by making the forums only readable by players who have an active wow account. It wouldn't keep everyone out, but it should prevent search engines from putting WoW next to your resume...

[Maxion]

Most likely you will still be able to read the forums without your name being shown to anyone else anywhere, it will only show up if you make a post.
And they are not linking armory to realid, everything realid is still going to be an opt-in thing where if you don't want your real name shown anywhere, it won't be. Just don't opt in.

[luxlunae]

What's really terrifying is that this has warped into a "lets cross reference the forums with sex offender databases" thread that someone posted sarcastically... and then some parents got on board and are discussing it seriously.

[luxlunae]

Basically then anyone who doesn't want to be publicly linked to world of warcraft has to just not participate in the feedback systems for the game developers? That hardly seems fair. And while many of the forums are crap, some of them remain useful (I like the addon forum, personally).

[Souca]

Perhaps what bothers me the most is the seeming lack of concern from Blizzard about the paying subscribers that don't like these features. I can ignore the trolls and people that legitimately don't understand my concern or don't share it, but the company line seems to be very much "Deal with it."

- Souca -

[Kicksome]

This is good way to make people who want to remain anonymous, but post on the forums, pay another $15/month. You'd have to create a new bnet account, buy the game, and pay the subscription fee (via time card). And make sure you use a bogus name.